


Petrou

by samskeyti



Category: C - Tom McCarthy
Genre: M/M, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-07
Updated: 2011-02-07
Packaged: 2017-10-15 11:40:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samskeyti/pseuds/samskeyti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day it'll be boy meets boy and it won't all go to hell. Started for the origfic bingo prompt "minor characters", only to veer into fannishness. Warning for meta and poetry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Petrou

**Petrou**

 _(after reading C by Tom McCarthy)_

I will write you a novel in which you  
get the boy, you get to fix your hand  
over his heart and draw him in, have him  
slide his chest, his thigh against you  
for the few spiral seconds the tram takes  
to turn before it follows the promenade,

the leather straps unburdened by bodies  
slap the ceiling, the sun winks from the water,  
refracts at a point above his left ear and he  
swings away on one arm, clutching his strap,  
away and down, laughing and you, guessing  
sunspots, guessing shadows, follow.

You get the thin stickiness of ices at dusk,  
the Grand Hotel, sea, tobacco and gin.  
The sunset's florid, you loosen your tie  
and straighten his collar, murmur in Arabic,  
in Greek. The gin and sugar on his  
breath is sudden, masculine, mad.  
He doesn't count his words, not this boy.

I'll write you every impossibility.  
They sacked the library here, in Alexandria  
and even now particles arise, words  
disturbed at your feet, speckling your shoulders.  
Let me blot them with my fingers, lift them  
free. Smudge them into the linen. You sigh,

patient, serrated. Tilt your hat to shade  
your eyes, turn a foot and then an elbow  
to the side and pull, yearning away  
to your knotted streets, your puzzle-box,  
your flight. Step breathless into a shop,  
any, the door settling behind you but never

shut, the pages following you the way turning  
on starched sheets and feather pillows sounds  
like a storm to you, in miniature.  
His delicate snores, unbroken. You know  
the other boy in the other book didn't  
hear quite like you, either.

It will come to this, freezing, watching,  
poised to defend every inconsequence.  
I know everything about you, your botched  
transmissions, your half-remembereds,  
your private substitutions. Don't shiver,  
it's all for you. Let me begin.

Take your glass, knock back what's left  
and the boy, the blasted boy, grins.


End file.
